Speaking Notes for the honourable Minister of Women in The Presidency, MP Susan Shabangu, on the occasion of the #AskAnEngineer workshop hosted by Women and the Motsepe Foundation, Sci-Bono Science Centre, Newtown Johannesburg
I would like to convey my greetings and gratitude to the co-founders of Women in Engineering, Hema Vallabh and Naadiya Moosajee, and the co-chair of the Motsepe Foundation, Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe for their commitment to closing the social gaps that differentiate women from men.
But I reserve my very special greetings to the most special of our guests today: YOU, the young girls who are the future of this nation. I have been invited to address you directly today. The value and importance of this event cannot be adequately expressed in words. I urge all of you here to grab this opportunity with all that you have.
We grew up in a very different time than yours. Opportunities like these were unheard of for us. Our youth was spent fighting the apartheid system so that you may enjoy opportunities like the one you
have today.
I urge you to grab these opportunities, to take care of yourselves, to love yourselves and to be selfish with your dreams. If anything comes between you and your dream, you must be strong and brave
enough to run as far away from it as possible.
You must remember that we are moving towards the Fourth Industrial Revolution, where most jobs will be replaced by robots. It is predicted that by the year 2020, 80% of all future jobs will require a STEM education. When we weigh this against the reality that only 10% of young women globally show an interest in STEM subjects – the reality is shocking.
In the whole world, only 14% of those who work in STEM related careers are females. In South Africa, the number is only 7%.
We know that some of the biggest challenges to growing the number of girls who take up STEM subjects is the lack of role models in the industry. Other challenges include gender stereotyping in
textbooks, and very limited gender-responsive career counselling.
From a very young age, when you look at television or read books in schools, you are told that engineers are men. Pictures of engineers in your schoolbooks are dominated by men. We are working hard to change these stereotypes so that you can see that people like you and me can also be engineers.
You also have a big role to play in this. As you study and qualify, we want to add your names and pictures to textbooks so that your younger sisters can be inspired by you.
You must also know that it is a myth and a lie that only boys are good at maths and science. Your excellence in this field shows that. Some of the biggest challenges we still face is that many young girls like yourselves enroll for STEM subjects at undergraduate level, but do not continue with the same subjects at postgraduate level.
To address this challenge, government, the private sector and civil society has unveiled a number of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes to encourage you to enroll for STEM subjects.
As a united force of public and private organisations, we are committed to reaching 1 million girls through STEM education and awareness initiatives in at least 10 different geographies in the next 10
years. Together, we know we can.
In March this year, together with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation we launched the #1MillionGirlsInSTEM in New York. The main objective of the #1MillionGirlsInSTEM
campaign is to increase the number of girls entering the engineering and technology industry. This will be achieved through leveraging on current programs provided by Women in Engineering and
other institutions that are driving the campaign to see more women taking up careers in science, technology, and engineering.
At the Department of Women, we are leading the TechnoGirl Programme, through which we create opportunities for girls who are interested in STEM subjects and careers.
TechnoGirls was initiated in 2005 by UNICEF in partnership with our Department of Education, the Ministry in the Presidency Responsible for Women, the Department of Education, the State Information Technology Agency and Uweso Consulting.
The program provides opportunities for girls between the ages of 15 and 18, and who come from disadvantaged communities to begin exploring career avenues in traditionally under-represented
sectors such as mathematics, science, technology and engineering.
Techno Girls provides mentorship, shadowing experiences and skills development initiatives for girls like yourselves to gain insights and leadership skills in the public and private sectors.
So far, over 5000 girls have benefited from the program and have moved on to receive university or college scholarships.
The Techno Girls Alumni Program also provides support to ensure a higher completion rate at tertiary level schooling, and in securing job opportunities in their chosen fields of study.
A few weeks ago, I had lunch with 5 very dynamic TechnoGirls, who, like most of you, are breaking barriers and changing stereotypes about STEM.
The 5 girls are part of a group of 20 students who are sponsored by the Techno Girl Trust. As I relayed to them, I would like to tell you too, that firstly, do not forget to be proud of yourselves for venturing into careers that are not popular amongst young women. By doing this, you inspire many others. We are supporting you all the way, and are very proud of you.
We are also very well aware of the fact that patriarchal social norms teach you, every day, that engineers are men. By bringing all of these female engineers to you today, we want you to see that it is
possible for you too to be an engineer.
Science does not need to be a mystery to you. We are also going to foster increased partnerships with organisations like the Motsepe Foundation and Women in Engineering to monitor the media closely to ensure that the images they show you and your young sisters do not alienate you from your greatest potential.
I am making a commitment today to work closely with the Minister of Communications, who is very passionate about the advancement of women, to ensure that the SABC adheres to gender transformation by showing us more examples of female professionals in STEM careers. This must also be done in all our 11 official languages.
In 2015, His Excellency President Jacob Zuma released the Status of South African Women in the Economy Report, which was compiled by our department.
The report found that although South African Women make up the majority of enrolments in tertiary institutions, most of them do not enroll for STEM subjects.
Another disappointing finding was that women were not enrolling for Masters and Doctoral Degrees. As a result of these findings, we resolved to intervene across the educational system.
The National Research Foundation’s bursary scheme for engineering and computer science has also increased its support significantly since 2016.
We encourage you to make use of these opportunities.
And we are not going to leave you there. We know that when you leave school, you are going to face very difficult work environments. I am not saying this to scare you, but to equip you so that you do not give up - and also to inform you that we are working tirelessly to ensure that when you do get there, you do not face the same barriers.
Our Status of South African Women in the Economy Report instructed us to “address contexts and institutional climates within employers” as this may be one of the factors discouraging young women like yourselves from entering STEM careers.
By doing this for you, we are continuing to shape a better world for generations to come. Do you know that the World Economic Forum recently found that Africa produces only 1.1% of the world’s scientists? In fact, in the whole continent, there are only 79 scientists for every 1 million Africans. In the United States, there are 4500 scientists for every one million Americans. You can change these statistics.
These stereotypes, which inhibit young girls like yourselves for pursuing STEM careers are not limited to the country or the continent only. All over the world, the challenges are the same.
Globally, just a little less than half of the women who earn engineering degrees do not work as engineers. Most quit shortly after starting.
Women switch because they do not believe that their skills are good enough. A large majority feel that they do not fit well into the environment, which is male-dominated.
Most women leave STEM careers because the work environment is still very gendered and patriarchal, and their co-workers and supervisors still do not consider them as competent workers. Some are not given enough opportunities to advance in their workplaces.
We encourage you to build and sustain networks amongst yourselves so that you can support each other as you develop your careers. In 2015, the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation, which South Africa is a member of, also confirmed that women who obtain STEM degrees continue to be significantly less likely than men to pursue a career in these fields. 71% of male graduates from STEM subjects work as professionals in STEM fields, while only 43% of female graduates did the same.
The under-representation of women in STEM is a great concern to all of us.
What is mainly at stake is the opportunity and freedom for everyone to choose a professional that is in line with their aspirations and capabilities. We are very aware that social, cultural, and labour
market perceptions about the gender of an engineer affect career choices and perspectives amongst young people.
We are working tirelessly to ensure that this changes for you.
In addition, we know that there are other factors that affect your schooling environment. By doing this, we are trying to eliminate all factors that limit your potential.
It is also for this reason that we are currently developing the National Policy Framework on Sanitary Dignity. With this policy framework, we aim to provide free sanitary products for female learners,
particularly the indigent learner who sometimes has to miss school because of their menses.
With this, we are also encouraging you to not only study towards your undergraduates’ degrees. We want you to pursue postgraduates’ degrees to the levels of PhDs and Professorships.
Our country is in desperate need for PhD graduates, particularly female graduates. To put it in perspective for you, in 2010, South Africa produced about 1400 PhDs. In the same year Brazil, which has a comparable economy to us, produced about 2200 from just ONE university. This shows you that the opportunities are endless for you if you choose to pursue your studies further.
We are committed to ensuring that you have adequate and capable mentors, as well as enough financial assistance. All you have to do is commit to studying.
Yesterday I was invited to a breakfast discussion by Price Waterhouse Coopers. The conversation is the same, corporate South Africa is striving to attract more females into management and board positions.
There is a desperate need for educated females. We are doing our part. You also have to do yours. We are also in support of the 30% Club, which is a group of Board Chairs, CEOs and Senior Partners of
organisations that are committed to attracting more women onto boards.
Our overall aim with the 30% Club is to achieve the 30% goal of women on boards in South Africa by 2018. The campaign has achieved notable success in a relatively short period of time internationally. And our efforts continue tirelessly.
Our quest to encourage you to study and complete your Doctorates is in line with the National Development Plan, which has declared that central to a highly productive, globally connected economy
are high-level skills and extensive participation in higher education. We want to achieve this because “knowledge production is the rationale of higher education”.
Through the NDP, government aims to produce more than 100 doctoral graduates per one million of the population by 2030. This means that we have to increase our annual production of PhDs from the current amount of about 1500 per annum to about 5000 per year in 2030.
Roughly speaking, this means that the annual production of doctoral graduates would have to increase from 1,420 per annum in 2010 to 5,000 per annum in 2030.
There is also increased talk of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which will affect women the most. As workers are replaced by robots, women will be the first to be replaced. We have to be forward thinking and consider how we can prevent you and your counterparts from suffering as a result of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
But despite these challenges, we must also celebrate our gains. We must also be hard at work to think about creative ways in which we can advance the status of women further. We must be relentless
in our efforts to ensure access to justice, to economic opportunities, to employment, to equal pay for work of equal value, to access to health care and health services for women.
This morning’s event is special as it contributes to the ongoing agenda of this month, to increase our dialogues and conversations about what we can do together, not separately, to advance the socioeconomic status of women.
In conclusion, I would also like to encourage you to never forget where you come from. As you grow and succeed through the help of others, you must in turn help those who come after you. Your success is not yours alone. It is only through helping others that we can show appreciation to those who have helped us.
Most importantly, it is through such action that we can change our world. When we were growing up, our mantra was “Each One Teach One” and “Each One Help One”. You too, must embrace this mantra.
As you grow, you must ensure that you inspire and help your other young sisters. You must also help your brothers. By paying attention to you in this way, we are not saying you must neglect your brothers.
Those who are dreamers like you, who are focused on being better tomorrow: you must work with them and move forward. But run as far away as possible from those who want to use you. They do not deserve you.
Today you have the opportunity to interact with real engineers and engineering students. I urge you to ask them as many questions as possible. Do not be afraid. There is no right or wrong questions. Only the curious amongst you will succeed.
Today you will also have the opportunity to participate in hands-on activities that focus on your individual aspirations. Do not be afraid to ask, to touch things, or to break things or to make mistakes.
It’s only from doing that that you will truly learn. Visit the stalls that have been prepared here for you. Amongst them are representatives from Microsoft, who will give you all the information you need for a career in Information Technology.
Walk around and visit chemical, mechanical, civil and electronic engineers. You are truly spoilt for choice. Use it to the best of your ability. And do not just stop here.
Finally, I would like to thank you, Women in Engineering, the Motsepe Foundation, and Microsoft for your commitment, contributions, and courage to continue the journey. Let us to work even harder,
united, in changing the social, psychological, economic conditions that separate women from men.
Thank you.
